comments on learning and living, mainly taken from the email lists and forums on which I have far, far too much to say. Hopefully, this is the good stuff.

10.07.2012

truisms - "proven" strategies

proven parenting strategies

There's a
fundamental problem with this premise, which is that it assumes
that
rule-based parenting is proven effective when it's results are actually
pretty
random. In fact, the body of evidence provided by "proven parenting
strategies"
is that there are good seeds and bad seeds and it doesn't matter
if you do all
the right things, some kids will turn out bad.

The
problem is that conventional parenting and educational strategies
are
divorced from rational analysis. Parents and teachers continue using the
same
strategies and sharing them as "proven" even when they fail
spectacularly. Part
of that comes from seeing child psychology and behavior
as divorced from adult
psychology and behavior - children are seen as
students or subjects, future
adults, future people, and as such everything
known about human nature is set
aside in favor of tactics for training or
educating them.

Where radical unschooling gets radical is that it applies
what is known about
human nature and cause-and-effect relationships to
children. There have been
educational methods, over the years, which apply
those principles in classroom
situations to great effect. And there have been
parents and movements of parents
who have applied such principles in the
home, also to great effect. These
principles have been applied to normal
kids, gifted kids, troubled kids, and
kids with a wide range of disabilities.
The idea that children are human beings,
with the needs of human beings and
reactions of human beings, and that adults as
well as children can learn from
adult-child interactions to the betterment of
both parties has been proven
true over and over. But none of that is reflected
in conventional parenting
lore or common educational methodology.

it seems that parents
still need to steer their kids in the right direction,not based on biased
world view...

The human brain is designed to notice
patterns and there are patterns everywhere
- in speech, in social
interactions, in shapes of things, in the relationships
between physical
characteristics. Some sets of related patterns we call
"language" some we
call "mathematics" some we call "ethics" and "courtesy". Kids
can't help but
notice those patterns and think about them because that's what
our big
convoluted brains do best.

The trouble with trying to "steer kids in the
right direction" is it ignores the
human capacity to see patterns - it's the
"do as I say, not as I do" fallacy.
Adults try to write knowledge onto kids
to protect them from having to learn
"the hard way" - noble sentiments! but
the human brain isn't a tabula rasa. It
doesn't work that way, and so kids
become aware of the fundamental gaps between
what's being taught and the real
patterns of real life. That's why teenagers
fight with their parents! They
have enough perspective by then to see all the
ways that adults are
impulsive, foolish, self-deluded, contradictory, and rude,
and contrast that
with how they're told they should behave "if you want to be
an
adult".

If you step back from the idea that kids need to be steered
and see what they
do, they explore and respond to the patterns of their
environment. Adults can
help them - and should! Unschooling is absolutely Not
"hands off parenting" it's
very engaged, thoughtful parenting. Kids, like
adults, don't want to be set up
to make disastrous mistakes, but they do want
to make their own decisions.
Unschooling parents help by offering up other
portions of the patterns around
them.

from a related discussion:What methods [of evaluation] would you suggest, that aren't subjective?There are no methods of measuring what a person has learned which are not subjective - none whatsoever. The idea that it's possible to measure learning objectively is part of the problem, and one of the reasons so many parents, educators and administrators are opposed to the use of standardized systems of evaluation. That's why more responsive methods of education rely on a mix of different kinds of feedback, both qualitative and quantitative - feedback which allows the "teacher" to know if he or she is doing well or needs to modify his or her approach, focus, and/or goals to better meet the needs of the student(s). The greatest horror of the push toward more "objective" methods is that it prevents teachers from doing exactly that - modifying the curriculum to the real needs of the people being educated. That kind of ongoing, inherently subjective, assessment and modification is the hallmark of good teaching anywhere, under any conditions.

About Me

I am a work-a-day mom, quilting diva and retired yoga teacher, whatever that means. Or maybe I should say I'm a radical unschooler, radical feminist and radical faerie! (whatever *that* means!) What was it Walt Whitman said about contradictions? I contain multitudes. Or something.